Two days ago in Britain the Channel 5 TV channel ran a documentary on the assassination of JFK on 22 November 1963, from the perspective of evidence heard by the Warren Commission. The documentary focussed on evidence from witnesses that were not called by the Commission to give evidence and suggested that the whole investigation was a ''cover up'' by the Secret Service.

It was alleged that the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald fired only two shots. The first shot was a near miss in which a splinter from the bullet hit JFK, causing him to say he had been hit. The second shot was the one that hit JFK in the neck and Governor Connelly. However the third and killing shot didn't come from Oswald, but from a Secret Service agent in a following vehicle who on hearing the first two shots had picked up an automatic rifle from the floor of his car, flicked off the safety catch upon which the weapon discharged one round which hit JFK right on the back of the head. The telling evidence was that this was an explosive bullet wheras Oswald wasn't using such ammunition.

I was wondering what the American members of this forum make of this. Surely if the weapon had made an accidental discharge it was a lethal shot on incredible odds of hitting such a tiny area to kill JFK?

thats a new one to me. i find it to be very unlikely for a couple of reasons. its very rare for a well maintained gun to fire when the safety is mover to off. yes it has happened but its rare even with misused weapons. any weapon used by the presidential protection unit is maintained by very well trained and experienced armorers so i would expect the odds of such a event to be almost beyond belief. even if it were to happen the weapon would have had to been lifted above the windshield or stuck out the window in order to even have a line of fire. the timing and the odds of such a shot boggle the mind. the reported wound paths were all descending from the rear to the front which would seem to preclude any such accidental shot

The programme had quite a bit to say about the rifle. Apparently this weapon was a recently adopted secret high powered rifle, not fully tested and immediately after the death of JFK these rifles were all withdrawn from use and never came back. The rifle had been kept on the floor of the vehicle - as such not the main weapon the agents would use, however the agent grabbed it.

The agent according to quoted witnesses raised the rifle above the windshield facing directly forward, the agent flipped the safety catch as he started to look backwards towards the Repositry from where Oswald was firing and a round was discharged. Witnesses close by stated they smelled a gunpowder like odour in the following seconds - which could only come from a close by weapon being fired.

The agent was named by the programme as George Hickory. He died in 2004.

The rifle in question was the Armalite AR 15, the semi-auto version of what would become the M-16, so it was hardly withdrawn from service. You can still go out and buy one if you want. It was also not experimental by 1963, having been in production since 1959. I have never heard of a problem with the safety, unlike the bolt action Remington Model 700 which did have a problem with the gun accidentally discharging when the safety was disengaged. The article below has a picture of Hickey holding the AR15 moments after the President was shot.

This is the same picture used in the TV programme. It didn't specifically mention the name of the rifle but was adament that it was a new weapon that was quietly withdrawn from use without any official explanation being given.